The utter generosity of the poor humbles us. They give rice to every mendicant even when their rice is getting over. That is what needs to be understood - their greatnes and their richness. That is what they are defined by. That they are impoverished is what defines us.
We are the cause of that poverty - and the onus is on us to share deeply and completely. (nagesh333@gmail.com)

Sunday, 26 October 2014

The End of Gandhian Thought - 1

"Even as early as 1934 it was clear that Gandhi's vision of rural re-construction via Khadi and Village Industries was of no interest to either Nehru nor Subash Chandra Bose , both absolute believers in Industrial Socialism and Planning systems of USSR . Gandhi leaves the Congress in 1934 as its leader to concentrate on Sevagram and rural revitalisation. Gandhi's Hind Swaraj was irrelevant way before 1947.

Congress needed Gandhi to give lip-service to most of India , 85% of almost 350 million who lived in rural areas . Congress started having its meetings in rural areas with Gandhi having his Village Industries exhibitions. And after 1947 Congress killed Gandhi's vision completely . Gandhi had said this many times, that you will burn Khadi after I die as you do not understand the importance of local production.

Gandhi's understanding of how urbanisation would destroy natural resources and how de-centralised production and consumption is ecologically the only real sustainable way remains path-breaking to this day .

All we have today is a Left-wing and a Right-wing exact replicas of the West , and now China . The Indian elite has no mind of its own . It copied its masters the British first , then the Americans or Soviets , then the Japanese , now the Chinese . Few here and there in the manufacturing system follow Germany . And till now the Indian elite is the most outstandingly mediocre of every elite on the planet .

Little imagination, petty visions and almost no clue of its own history and genius . Luckily there are many outside this herd and emerging with an Indian imagination and process .

"The outstanding event of the forty-ninth session of the Congress held under the Presidentship of Rajendra Prasad at Abdul Gaffar Nagar, Bombay, was Gandhi's retirement from the Congress for having failed to persuade it to change its creed from "peaceful and legitimate" to "truthful and non-violent" methods.

On October 28, 1934, the Congress reiterated its confidence in Gandhi's leadership, while reluctantly accepting his decision ...

Gandhi justified his physical severance from the Congress. "For me to dominate the Congress in spite of fundamental differences is almost a species of violence which I must refrain from ...

Realising that revivification of the villages, which were perpetually exploited, was a necessity if India was to exist and a remedy for its progressive poverty, Gandhi took his abode in the Ashram at Wardha.

Being convinced that the real India dwelt in her villages, Gandhi tramped to Segaon-later called Sevagram-a village five miles from Wardha on June 16, 1936 to attain self-realisation through the service of the village-folk in steadfast faith ... He reached his destination, lived in a one-room mud.........

For him, "Khadi was the sun of the village solar system and the various village-industries its planets ..."

"We should," he argued, "identify ourselves with the poor villagers, live as they live, help them to produce what we need and make full use of the local raw material, local talent and local tools ... "

To promote contact with the villagers, the first village session of the Congress, according to Gandhi's conception, was held at Faizpur under the Presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru in December, 1936... Vast unsophisticated crowds thronged Tilaknagar the bamboo village... All arrangements were befitting the village life.. .

Gandhi took no part in the Congress debates, opening the Khadi and Village Industries Exhibition.

Gandhi realized that in the long run the future depended on the village school. He expounded the theory of education through vocation which would promote the real, disciplined development of the mind by drawing out the best in the child and yet keeping him rooted in the soil with a vision of the future . He wanted education to be based on village occupations and easily accessible to all.Though education was to be based on a craft, Gandhi insisted that the child's intellect and heart were to be trained as much as his hands.

The fifty-first session of the Congress met on the bank of the river Tapti at Haripura in rural surroundings under the stewardship of Subhash Chandra Bose, the youngest President in February, 1938.

President Bose put forward a case for national reconstruction: "Our chief national problems relating to the eradication of poverty, illiteracy and diseases can be effectively tackled only along socialistic lines ... .

"The state, on the advice of a Planning Commission, will have to adopt a comprehensive scheme for gradually socializing our entire agricultural and industrial system in the spheres of both production and distribution ... "

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About Me

In 1995, Paalaguttapalle (Dalitwada) became home. After studying engineering, working for three years, I resigned, and started looking for more meaningful and socially relevent work. An understanding of Gandhi gave the paradigm, and the search led to this village. Nagesh also came 'looking for a village to work in', and this village became home. As neighbours, friends and teacher we became part of the village ... and saw some of the timeless wisdom of villages ...